Ice Tea and Elvis

Nick Middleton's speciality within travel writing is his passion for the peculiar. A social geographer by profession, his interest lies in not just foreign places, but the people that inhabit them - their lives, their loves, their work, rest and play. His first two books were prompted by journeys to Mozambique and Mongolia, far flung and exotic climes where the prevailing culture was always going to be very different to his own. Ice Tea and Elvis and Travels as a Brussels Scout brought him closer to home, but prove that even our nearest neighbours and those who supposedly speak the same language couldn't have been a richer hunting ground for the bizarre and the kitsch.

From the imported sands of Miami Beach - so hot they threaten the native wildlife - to the antebellum mansions of Savannah, Georgia, a Gathering of the Clans in Carolina, an interstate contest over the meaning of barbecue (Southerners 'eat' barbecue, Northerners 'have' a barbecue) and its constituent meat to the eccentrically named townships of Frostproof and Niceville in Florida to Slaughter, Louisiana, the Southern states of the USA are a breeding ground of miscegenation, racial hatred, great movies and political giants.

Nick Middleton was born in London. As a geographer he has travelled to more than 50 countries and teaches part-time at Oxford University. As a travel writer he has been accused of drug smuggling and spying but has never spent a night in jail. He has been fined for dropping a match in China, mugged in Moscow, conned in Casablanca and kidnapped in Outer Mongolia, but hasn't tired of travelling yet.